PASADENA – KTLA’s Stephanie Edwards, banished from the broadcast booth for this year’s Rose Parade telecast, is blaming station management for unfair treatment and sees herself having an even more limited role in the future.

Edwards worked her 27th parade on Monday, but for the first time, she was not in the booth with co-host Bob Eubanks. While Michaela Pereira took over that spot, Edwards was out in the rain, reporting occasionally from the grandstands and getting drenched.

KTLA, the most popular station for Rose Parade coverage, received hundreds of calls and e-mails about the change – many wondering why Edwards was left out in the cold.

“I got soaked,” Edwards said. “We could have all avoided criticism if we had prepared me with a little protection from the wind and rain.”

Edwards said she was informed in late autumn that she might not be invited to co-host this year. Later, management returned to offer her the job hosting the pre-parade telecast but said she would not be on-camera during the parade. The offer to report from the grandstands came later, she said.

Edwards said she prayed about her decision and then decided to do it – even though she would earn less than a quarter of her usual salary.

“I do believe I’ve got to speak out now about the fact that what I accepted as my gig this year was paid for with a far lower salary than anyone could possibly imagine,” she said. “Let’s just say it’s in very few digits.”

Edwards is 62. When she was nudged aside to make way for a younger woman, many of her fans saw it as age and gender discrimination. Eubanks, after all, is 68.

KTLA denied that Edwards was being cast aside at all, describing her as a third co-host.

“We decided to try something new and different,” said KTLA spokeswoman Carolyn Aguayo. “We knew we were going to have reaction. Based on people’s experience with the tradition, that’s totally understandable.”

Edwards said she accepts the realities of the television business, but wishes KTLA could have been more candid about the situation. She criticized “the hypocrisy from upper management” and spoke about a long history of unequal treatment.

“Fair is not really a part of this business,” she said.

Still, Edwards said that the station is entitled to put whomever it wants on the air, and said she understands that the public wants to see younger women.

“When a woman is 62, she is not going to be seen as being as marketable as a man of the same age would be, not by marketers or the public,” she said. “The public does not want to look at a 62-year-old woman with as much sexual interest as the public would look at a 62-year-old man. That is a fact. By God’s grace and with a face-lift I have remained sellable because I don’t have to do sexy stuff. I don’t have to have a certain bust measurement.”

Edwards had high praise for Pereira, whom she described as “a lovely, fresh voice.” She also denied rumors of a feud between her and Eubanks, saying that the on-air talent sticks together like “a grand fraternity.”

“We love each other,” she said of Eubanks. “Without his approval, I would have been gone a long time ago.”

Edwards said that she and Eubanks had long joked that he was the big shot, and he made the big salary. Though she never knew the terms of his deal, she suspects it was far more lucrative than hers.

“Women have always been willing to work for less,” she said. Before this year’s deep pay cut, Edwards said her salary had been frozen for eight years. “I would like to be paid more for doing what I do well. I have been saying so for 25 years.”

Aguayo declined to discuss Edwards’ comments about salary.

“We don’t discuss what people are being paid,” she said.

Edwards will be in the second year of a two-year contract to host the pre-parade telecast, but has no deal for the parade itself.

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